When touched, the hypersensitive makahiya Plant folds its tiny folders inwards and protects himself against a possible threat.
Florence Solis Put portraits from this defensive reaction in an essential collection. Starting with digital collages that mix figures and delicate, organic ornaments, the Filipino-Canadian artist translates the imagined forms to the canvas. Dressed in graceful, beads veils or entangled with botanicals, every protagonist seems bound and hidden, bodies and faces are hidden by her or grass.
As Solis sees it, the figures can be limited, but they can also find strength and transformation. “Filipino women, just like the Makahiya, have learned to admit, soften, to take less space,” she says. “And yet under this silence there is an unmistakable power – one that continues to exist in its own way, adapts and recovers in his own way.”
Working in saturated, often palettes with one color, reflects solis figures that seem to use magical powers. She refers to the Filipino folklore and the belief in the power of the everyday to the divine, painting women rooted in tradition and myth, but determined to see their transformation through.
The lively portraits that are shown here can be seen this week at Expo Chicago The Mission Projects. Find more of solis on Instagram.
